Maxine Turner

Turner Family / AP

Maxine Turner

Turner was a chemical engineering student, she was just one month away from graduation. According to the Los Angeles Times, Turner had good friends, a variety of interests from Tae Kwan Do to German, and had already received job offers.

Although men outnumbered women on Virginia Tech's campus, Turner never seemed daunted by the gender imbalance, the Times said. She had formed a sorority for other women in her field  as she described it "females who had never had female friends... for anyone looking for a support group, since engineering is challenging."

"I don't think she looked at being a woman in science as a handicap; she thought it was unique, uncommon and very special," Cady Hendershot, 21, told the Times. Hendershot was a biology junior who met Turner when they lived in the same residence hall. "She was willing to work her way up from the very bottom," Hendershot said. "She was honest, very candid. She was one of the most amazing people you could know."